lunch meeting, turned entire day trip...

Yesterday, I had one of my best experiences since being in Taiwan. A mother of one of my students had asked me last week if I could meet with her and her husband for "lunch" on Sunday. She said that her husband could speak better English and he really wanted to chat with me about a few things regarding their son. First of all, I am not sure if this sort of stuff would fly back home, as a teacher? Anyways, the fact that our school is so relaxed, I didn't even have to hesitate.

Initially (and especially on a morning after a late night at KTV), the idea of meeting with parents and one of my students on a Sunday wasn't ideal. Beth had, I guess, tried to warn me that this would not simply be a lunch date but rather an all day sort of deal. She claims this is the Asian way of doing things? Well, she was right! (sidenote: Beth was also invited to this meeting, as she teaches my students a couple of subjects-- the fun ones! and I am so glad she was there...)

As we were walking out of the apartment, Beth was annoyed that she had forgotten her camera. This took me by surprise because, a) she never has her camera with her, and b) I really was under the impression we were going out for lunch, and why would you need a camera for such a thing? I was soon to find out that lunch, doesn't really mean lunch in these parts.

We got picked up, in a BMW. My student greeted us from the back seat. We drove for 30 minutes or so, I felt car sick, gulped some water and was happy to get to our destination when we did, for more reasons than one! They had taken us to a place called Neiwan (in Hsinchu county) out in the mountains. Immediately, I knew that I was really going to regret not bringing my camera along! We decided we would eat first then go and check out the very well known market across the bridge. The food was great, everything was great. We were surrounded by mountains, everything was lovely.

Beth and I were excited to check out the rest of this traditional village. Much to our stomach's dismay (Beth's reasons different from mine!), we had to cross this pretty wobbly bridge in order to get to the market. Although I was definitely trying to spend as little time as possible on this bridge, it would have been ignorant not to acknowledge the surroundings. Under the bridge were mostly rocks, swimming dogs and lots of people, apparently having picnics! Fun. When the water is up a bit, people will tube in it! So neat... this place was also abundant with kid-friendly fun! Arcades, bumper cars, trampolines and a simulated earthquake machine! Only in Asia...

We walked... and walked, my student's parents now becoming more like tour guides! It was great to have them around and ask them questions about some of the interesting sights of the village. I feel like I learned quite a bit about local traditions from this excursion! We went into this bizarre animal museum? It may have been like Ripley's Believe it or Not-- it was strange. There were weird things like a 2- headed piglet, just sitting in the middle of a room, in a box filled with water... or something. A 4- month old, gigantic rabbit from Australia? A giant model of an elephant's 'junk', just hanging out of the wall? Simply put, some unusual stuff.

I should add, that whenever it was possible, Beth would give me a time update. As the day wore on, we realized that lunch was, in fact, turning into a 4, 5, 6,.... yes, 7 hour day trip! But what a day. We'll be going back for sure, this time with cameras and more money!

I debated writing about this trip at all because I knew I wouldn't be able to add pictures with the stories, but I couldn't resist after having such a great day and realizing, not for the first time, that Taiwan is going to be a really, really hard place to leave...